Policy Article Analysis
Introduction
The criminal justice system in America is impacted by class, race, and gender issues that affect and can be affected by policy decisions (Barak et al., 2018). One particularly policy issue deals with reform of the system, and how restorative justice can be used instead of punitive justice, to help create better integration between minorities and socio-economically challenged offenders and the wider community. This paper discusses the idea of a restorative justice policy in terms of how it could affect class, race, and gender inequities, based on the article Civic Implications of Restorative Justice Theory: Citizen Participation and Criminal Justice Policy by Dzur (2003).
Restorative Justice and Its Policy Implications
Restorative justice is the idea that justice can be served via restitution paid by the offender. It stands in contrast to punitive justice, which focuses on punishing the offender (typically with imprisonment) but does little to nothing in terms of restoring what was taken from the community as a result of the offense. In restorative justice, the offender is given an opportunity to make restitution, for example, through some community service, and the victim and community can feel satisfied that the offense has been rectified, the offender rehabilitated, and justice served (Dzur, 2003). The overall policy aim is to reduce incarceration and recidivism rates while also addressing the disparities in class, race and gender as they relate to crime and punishment. This non-punitive approach to justice has its historical roots in humanism.
The idea of restorative justice goes back to the Mennonite Central Committees victim-offender mediation projects in Kitchener, Ontario, and Elkhart, Indiana (Chiste, 2013). These early forays into restorative justice were motivated by religious and reformist principles, but over time the idea took on a social justice dimension, too, in order to address lingering issues of inequity in class, race, and gender (Payne & Welch, 2015; Kim, 2021; Willis, 2020). Restorative justice has been supported theoretically and practically as a reform policy in criminal justice, due to its ability to reduce recidivism rates among offenders and appease victims better than punitive justice approaches (Kim, 2021; Turner, 2019). It also appeals to reforms due to its potential for reducing the costs associated with imprisonment and alleviating the social consequences of traditional punitive measures??, like father or mother absence, and undermining of minority populations (Dzur, 2003).
Historically, restorative justice has offered an alternative to the punitive measures that disproportionately affect lower socioeconomic classes (Willis, 2020). Traditional punitive systems have been linked to class disparities due to the fact that economically disadvantaged offenders tend to face harsher penalties such as longer sentences since they have limited capital for top-tier legal representation. Restorative justice, on the other hand, takes a different approach to justice by focusing on reparations made to the community and the victim rather than punitive measures; the offender is not separated from the community but instead is obliged to create stronger ties and bonds with the community through some serviceand this manner class disparities and social equity are not worsened and can be actually improved (Willis, 2020).
The racial implications of restorative justice are also interesting, since...
…should also be some gender awareness aspect in policy that considers the needs of female offenders and victims from a restorative justice approach.Likewise, increasing the publics engagement in and awareness of restorative justice programs, outcomes, and processes could go a long way towards making an impact on social attitudes about the criminal justice systems reliance on punitive approaches. There could be public education campaigns, supported by policy, that raise awareness of the benefits of restorative justice, referring to recent evidence in scholarly research, that can build support for such non-punitive reform. Gaining public participation in the criminal justice system would be a big first step in reforming the justice system (Dzur, 2003).
Bringing restorative justice into the mainstream criminal justice system will help to reduce incarceration rates and promote social justice because it is ultimately a pro-social approach to criminal justice thanks to its community-minded focus.
Overall, restorative justice is a reform-based approach and an alternative to traditional punitive measures in the criminal justice system. It focuses on reconciliation, integration, satisfaction of justice through community involvement and service. Restorative justice policies can be used to address the problems related to issues of class, race, and gender that are found throughout the system. The historical and current perspectives of restorative justice show its potential in creating more equitable justice for offenders and better satisfaction for victims and communities. Future policies should seek to expand restorative justice programs and practices to help bring fairness into the system and solve some of the disparities that result from punitive approaches, such as mother and father…
References
Barak, G., Leighton, P., & Cotton, A. (2018). Class, race, gender, and crime: The socialrealities of justice in America. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Chiste, K. B. (2013). Origins of Modern Restorative Justice: Five Examples from the English-Speaking World, the. UBCL Rev., 46, 33.
Dzur, A. W. (2003). Civic implications of restorative justice theory: Citizen participation andcriminal justice policy. Policy Sciences, 36(3), 279-306.
Kim, M. E. (2021). Transformative justice and restorative justice: Gender-based violence andalternative visions of justice in the United States. International Review of Victimology, 27(2), 162-172.
Payne, A. A., & Welch, K. (2015). Restorative justice in schools: The influence of race onrestorative discipline. Youth & Society, 47(4), 539-564.
Turner, J. (2019). Race, gender and restorative justice: Ten gifts of a critical race feministapproach. Richmond Public Interest Law Review, 23, 267.
Willis, R. (2020). ‘Let’s talk about it’: Why social class matters to restorative justice.
Criminology & Criminal Justice, 20(2), 187-206.
Restorative Justice: With the research conducted between the years 1997 and 1998 in the United States and Europe shows that the rate of crime was high and the culprits were never given any chance to defend themselves whenever they appeared before the court of law. This made the courts to be full and the prisons to be overcrowded as criminals saw that there was no justice in their rulings. It is
Restorative Justice Individual restorative justice paper: Case study Traditionally, the debate about the purpose of the justice system has revolved around the question of whether punishment should be retributive or rehabilitative in nature. Those who favor a retributive model stress the need for criminals to pay their debts to society and view the purpose of the justice system as primarily to punish convicts through confinement and forcing them to work. Those who
Variations of the area court model, such as teen courts, medicine courts, and household physical violence courts, focus on specific concerns in order to establish even more extensive options. The underlying presumption of neighborhood courts is that neighborhoods are deeply damaged by the sentencing procedure yet are seldom spoken with and associated with judicial results. Correcting Community justice has actually been slowest to show up in the correctional industry. Maybe this
According to Richards (2004), however, the history of restorative justice outside of the specifically named restorative justice procedures that are littered throughout U.S. criminal justice history is difficult to determine. Although she cites work that suggests restorative justice has been around since the dawn of time, she argues that some histories are used as a means to convince others of the importance of restorative justice and, therefore, often exaggerate
However the law demands that the course of action should be experimented, and evaluated on the grounds that if they are reasonable, restorative, and respectful. The offenders should comply by the standards of safety, values, ethics, responsibility, accountability and civility. The offenders should be exposed to the same nature of crime experienced by the victims, and should be provided with the chance of learning empathy. Such an offender should
Restorative justice is a forward-looking, preventive response that strives to understand crime in its social context (Maiese, 2003). It examines the root causes of violence and crime to break these cycles of crime. This approach is based on the assumption that crime has its origins in social conditions, and recognizes that offenders themselves have often suffered harm. Therefore, offenders can tell their story of why the crime occurred and, just
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